eastbound | un: nah

So turns out even helping citizens being brutalized by the Hand assholes can get you locked up in the slammer for the night. I'm trying real hard not to turn into a three-headed dog-monster and break out of here, just gonna do my time until tomorrow morning, cause otherwise there's no way some innocents won't get caught in the crossfire. Maybe some of you might be up for distracting a gal?

See, there was this drinking game we'd play at the bar: What the fuck is up with that?

Gotta make some adjustments for a network, but just chime in on this post if you wanna play. Other people will ask you, What the fuck is up with ____insert-thing-here-about-you_______? and then you're supposed to answer honestly or drink if you don't want to answer it. Obviously you could still just lie, but then you're a coward. If you're not into drinking, you can think of some other way to punish yourself for not answering.

But for instance, you might ask me, "What the fuck is up with you being able to turn into a three-headed dog-monster?" Or you might ask a friend, "What the fuck is up with your hatred of chickens?" or "What the fuck is up with you being so tall?" Sky's the limit. One time a guy asked another guy, "What the fuck is up with you being so handsome?" and that kicked off a whirlwind romance for them.

Just a way to way to pass the time while we wait for people to be handled and for the beacon to be activated for those who actually want to head home, and you'll be saving the city from the wrath of me so, y'know, an easy way to be a hero.

(OOC: thread jacking wildly encouraged. feel free to plurk about your chars comments so their cr could potentially ask them stuff. go wild! drinking game lovingly borrowed from Critical Role. )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Well, shit, yeah. That would scare the ever-living-daylights out of anybody, but especially a kid just trying to get by. It definitely matters that it happened and still scares you to this day, and I was made to be a really fucking scary dog-like-beast so no offense taken at all. Please run to your heart's content, but I do have full control over it - not that it stops fears. And yeah it's weird having two forms. They both kind of feel natural in some ways, but I obviously now spend more time like this.

( watch him just gently sliiiide right away from the topic of his childhood and his fear of dogs, which, despite the number of times in the last two years people have attempted shock therapy, has not actually improved: )

How did you come to know you had two true forms for yourself?

( Red definitely notes the sliding on by, but she figures trauma is more than a good enough reason to never want to talk about something or be around it again. She'll try not shifting near him too if she can help it. )

Oh, I always knew. Like I said, I was made that way by Hades, and he told me - well, commanded me, to use whichever form was most fitting to keep all the spirits in line.

It wasn't until I escaped the Underworld that I experienced this whole getting older, growing thing that mortals do.

So choice was something you found in the freedom of that escape in so many ways.

How quick or slow was your aging once free? We tend to slow our aging when we're cultivators, and those on the path to immortality age very slowly indeed. Though more of it is in keeping free of mortal ties, to achieve those levels of longevity.

It's hard to say. It seemed about average for mortals, but then slowed down a bit. As far as I know, I now qualify more as mortal than immortal being, but who even knows. I didn't think I could actually leave the Underworld or exist outside of it so this is all uncharted territory.

Now's my turn for a question, what the fuck's up with 'keeping free of mortal ties'? Like what does that even mean?

( he laughs, without making note of it. yes, the concept doesn't lend itself to ready understanding. )

I'm a cultivator, but not pursuing true important, ah? So I'm involved with the world, the living, breathing, moving parts of it, the pains and joys of the regular people, the political nonsense of those with power. I don't want to give up my ties to the mortal realm or all it's feeling — feelings allowed to excess, not only careful cultured.

To find the perfection leading to immortality, you must willingly forego all of that. No lingering emotional ties to the greater world. No strong compelling personal desires, beyond that of finding equilibrium within and without. Self contained, allowing the world to find it's own ways forward.

Nothing I'm good at, and not the path I chose to walk. Few do! But there are some. They tend to be powerful, arguably wise, always difficult to find. They're not grounded in the world, but somewhere above it.

I see so your aging is slowed, but it's not the fully immortal type where you'll exist forever, because you still want to have feelings, relationships, and interact with the world around you. Speaking as someone who didn't have any interaction with the living, breathing, mortal world for a long ass time, I can understand why.

...they sound like the gods, but I do appreciate they don't allow themselves to then get involved with the living, breathing world like the gods in my own do. It's always messy when they do, but I wouldn't call these gods unfeeling either. They usually have too many.... combine that with a lot of power, and you get Mess.

What made you want to become a cultivator anyway? Was it a choice, or like a responsibility thrust upon you?

There's an ultimate goal of ascension, but the gods of our world, existing or not, leave us to our lives. Not much intervention, but those with faith and those with respect have their own strengths they draw from it, so I've seen.

Humans with too much power and too many strong emotions cause as many problems as they might solve. Gods managing even worse? Xie Lian might relate to how that goes.

Oh, I was born into a family of cultivators, had the capability for it myself, was found by a family friend while on my own on the streets at some point and taken in. At that point, it was all in the raising and training. Which was fun in its way, easy in others, something I enjoyed picking apart and excelling at.

So the cultivator thing kind of runs in the family, and even if you didn't get raised with that family, you still get to carry a piece of them with you which is kinda cool. I'm glad someone found you and took you off the streets, giving you something you could excel at and enjoy.

I know cultivators are all about like spirits and the dead and all of that so it seems like in general spirits are more free in your world. Or they linger more at least to have a need for cultivators to be high enough to have it running in families.

Hahaha... most cultivators only banish spirits. These days people are using more nuance, to figure out why they linger. In the end, all intact souls should be moving on and reincarnating.

There's more than spirits of any one kind, truly, we deal with all of them. Dealing intensively with the dead is something of a particular specialty of mine, such as it is.

Reincarnating, huh? That's beautiful. I like that better than having a set place for the dead - I think it'd be more of a comfort to people, to the dead if there was this coming back, being part of life again somehow reality to everything.

Instead of getting stuck some place, or judged for your sins and stuck some place terrible in some cases. You like what you do?

It's a beautiful possibility. Though fairly pointed out, returns to life don't mean each one is as a human, insects and plants require as much spirit in their brevity or longevity.

I do what I do. Liking doesn't factor in, though I do at times enjoy things I do. Or things I've invented! There's something to discovery and learning, always fascinating, the endless puzzles and potential of the world.

True. I feel like it'd be real peaceful to be a big tree, but insects seem to be going Through It all the time - understandably.

You've invented things?

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